A note from sweaty Rome for you … we’ve been here for a little while now, about 24 hours I guess. Done our share of sweating, but, we’ve been doing that since London, so we’re kind of getting used to it.
Have managed to see the Colosseum, some of the other ruins, and St. Peter’s Square/Basilica. All very impressive. The city is large, crowded and quite dirty. Having said that, I think that it is a place that pretty much everybody would enjoy visiting, and should make a point of getting here sometime. I imagine that there are better times of year to visit than July or August … something in the spring or fall would likely be great.
This morning, I got up around 5am, and was on the road by 5:30. I wanted to get some early morning photos at St. Peter’s Square. When I arrived, I pretty much had the place to myself … beautiful morning light, and nothing but a few nuns and priests walking about. It was unbelievable.
The Basilica opens at 7am, and I went in shortly after. The place is amazing in many ways, the least of which is its size … it can apparently hold more than 60,000 people, and I’d certainly believe it. When I was in there, there couldn’t have been more than 100 people. It was great.
Michele met up with me at 9 out in the square. We were going to go to the Vatican museums with the main goal of seeing the Sistine Chapel. We got in line (there are lines for everything if you’re not up really early) … Michele went ahead to see just how long the line was. She returned about 5 minutes later, saying that she wasn’t even able to see the end of the line. We pulled the plug on that for today, and will give it a try tomorrow. Back to the Basilica again … this time we had to wait in line
for about 20 minutes to get through the metal detectors (yes). We were back inside, and it was like a totally different place … more like an amusement park than the center of the Catholic world. People lining up to take photos of entombed popes, lots and lots of noise … really not a churchie atmosphere. But, what can you do? Get up early I guess. We’ll try the museums again tomorrow.